


Stars

by sirius



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, M/M, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirius/pseuds/sirius
Summary: I prefer fairytale endings.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics, The Rise of Skywalker: Fix-It Fic Edition





	Stars

_O, here, will I set up my everlasting rest,  
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh.  
Romeo and Juliet (Act 5, Scene 3)_

Each opens their eyes. They are sitting cross-legged opposite one another in the earthy grass. A light breeze is being whipped up by the distant mountains, but it isn't strong enough to worry the clouds. The sky is blue, and its light is reflected in her eyes as she – more quickly focussed – looks at him.

His eyes struggle against the light, which tells her that he's come here from the dark (though something else tells her that's only true _geographically_ ). It's clear that he is quite badly wounded. Yet, when he lifts his gaze, it's stronger than she'd have thought. 

“Where-?” he manages.

“Alderaan,” she says. 

“Where's Rey?”

“We must be quick,” she says. “We don't have much time. Where were you, before you woke up here?”

He blinks, fast, hard. Sighs. “Exogol.”

A chill goes through her. “Was Rey fighting him?”

“We... yes. She. We. We were both fighting him. At first. And then... It's- I climbed out, of this... pit, and he was gone. I climbed out and she was there. She was lying there. She was dead. I...”

“It's OK,” she says. “Keep going.”

“She was dead, but then- I- I transferred her some life force, and she woke up. She'd done it to me, just before; she- back on... the Death Star. I saw Dad there... it's- I'm trying to remember, but it's like it's all happening at once. I saw Dad. There's so much I need to-”

“Ben,” she says, and it snaps him to attention more quickly than just the touch of her hands on his. “I'm very sorry, I want to hear it – I want very much to hear it – but time, just now, is something we don't have. I'm glad that you saw your father. I know what he said to you, and I'm glad of it. But I need to ask you to remember what happened to Rey.”

“I kissed her,” he says, his voice faint and soft. “She kissed me. She said my name, and she kissed me, and then... I don't remember. It was like I fell asleep.” 

She feels her muscles ease with relief, and she knows then that she has the strength to say what must be said. 

“You need to make a choice,” she says. “That's why we're here. To make a choice. Do you know what the choice is?”

“I think so,” he says. “I felt you, with me. When I was climbing. I asked you to help me. So- you're- you're not really here, are you?”

“We're both really here,” she says. “But not for very long. We have to choose what happens next.”

Something dawns on his face. “We're both dead.”

“Yes,” she says. “But we can remain, if we want to. In a different form.”

His eyes have closed, and his hands are tense. He is her opposite. She can feel the sun on her back. Its warmth radiates through her and each breath she takes mirrors the air that rustles the woods around them. She can pinpoint every bird in the branches, every small creature disturbing the loamy soil, each wave of spring water weaving its way towards the future. 

“I want to go back,” he says, eventually. 

She smiles. “We can do that.”

“No,” he says. “Not as a Force ghost. Not- not as something that isn't real.”

She opens her mouth to speak, and he quickly adds, “that isn't real enough.”

“The only other option is to become part of it right now; to surrender yourself to the Force. Ben, this... this is as real as it can be. I know that you want to see her again. This is the only way.”

“I don't believe that.”

“You must. I'm sorry that I don't have enough time to help you to understand, but if you don't come with me, there won't be another chance to see her again.”

He's silent, for a few moments. She clutches his hands between hers. His eyes take in the sky, the trees, the mountains. Her home is unknown to him, but not unpleasant. It seems to give him strength to say what he needs to say.

“I want to try to return,” he says. “Even if it's hopeless. Even if it means surrender. I can't go back to her as a ghost. I can't ask her to love me, like that. Can you understand that?”

There's a long pause before she feels able to answer. Eventually, she nods.

“Can you let me go?”

She sighs. She waits. And in the silence, she senses what he's going to say, before he says it.

“You don't want to go without my blessing,” she says. “But you will if you have to.”  
He squeezes both her hands in his, as he whispers, yes.

“Funny that you should say it like that,” she says.

***

He opens his eyes. The sky is black, densely studded with stars. There's no breeze, and yet he feels himself slowly turning in small arcs. He blinks awake, lifts his hands to touch the glass ceiling that curves above him. He's lying in a long, thin casket, domed in glass. All around him is the spectre of space, a gigantic moonless cave. Yet he isn't afraid. He knows, somehow, that this is where he's supposed to be.

He doesn't dare disturb the glass, because he can breathe in here. Outside is beautiful but dangerous. The rotation of the casket allows him to view constellations, some of which he remembers dimly from childhood lessons. Others are new, and invite imagination. He saves them for later, because somehow, he knows that there will be a later, and that it will require some patience to endure.

For now, he rests his hands alongside his body, and takes a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he can feel that he's lying on a comfortable nest of blankets. They're velveteen in a rich deep navy. He's wearing the tunic from Exogol, but it's clean and mended, soft to the touch. He senses that his boots have been cleaned. His bones feel warm and easy, and there's no sign of any wounds to his body. Spreading his arms out creases the fabric on which he lies, and creates a sharp glimmer of sudden light that bounces back from the glass. 

Turning his head, he sees what looks like small white flowers; perhaps transfer from the fields in Alderaan? The thought reminds him of his conversation with his mother. She isn't here with him, and he can sense that he shouldn't be unsettled or sad about that. Things are how they are supposed to be. If he thinks hard, though, he can still smell the grass that was beneath him, taste the fresh mountain air that surrounded him, feel the warm shelter of his mother's hands over his, guiding him forward. 

It's then that he realises that they're not flowers, but stars. Tiny, bright white-gold stars. They're as numerous in the blankets as they are in the sky; it's a wonder that he could lift his hands at all. Whenever he moves, a shower of them spills out around his whole body, like a gilded stream, like a magical cape. He studies his reflection in the glass, noticing that they circle his face and thread his hair. Like a crown, or a halo. 

He would like to sit up, but he doesn't yet dare.

***

“It just had to be here,” Luke grumbles. Leia ignores him as they pace slowly across the sand. The winds are still, and the journey is easy. In the distance, she can see Rey. There's an mechanical element to her movements, as though she's doing only that which requires no active thought. Muscle memory alone. She watches her slide down the sand dunes on a makeshift metal sled, climbing back up with a small bundle of sticks in her arms. It makes her question herself. This could be now, or it could be years ago; watching a child in Jakku.

Luckily, her brother is there to steady her, in his own way. 

“Is she burying my saber? In _Tattooine_?”

“Yes,” she says, with a laugh. “She's exactly where she should be.”

“Burying my saber _here_?”

“Once the suns go down, you'll see.”

“You're doing it again.”

“You've missed it, haven't you?”

***

She sits down in the sand with her evening meal to watch the sunset. It occurs to her that there are really only three differences between now, and then. One, there are two suns; and two, there are more portions of food. Not that she really has an appetite. That's because of the third difference.

Her task – arriving in Tattooine – is done, and yet she feels unfulfilled. The numbness that sank cold into her bones back in Exogol has only deepened in the day or so since. She had hoped that travelling to Tattooine would help her to feel closer to Luke: Luke, who watched her take those first few steps in the Force; Luke, who encouraged her back out into the world when she so wanted to hide from it; Luke, who spent years in enforced isolation, and would understand why she now wants to do the same. She almost hoped that she might find him here, for guidance. But of course, he wouldn't come here.

She hadn't intended to bury the sabers. She'd brought them with her to give herself a reason to come, because Finn and Poe hadn't been keen on the idea. They'd wanted her to stay and celebrate the victory with them. To make it real. But being around their kind of happiness had been too painful for her. They hadn't been insensitive, but she could read love like a new language, and the cloud-soft kisses she'd witnessed on their journey now translated to her as thunderstorms. So, she'd taken the sabers, but found quite quickly that they were burning a hole in her clothes. She'd wanted them gone. They were her victory, yes, but also her loss. She'd ached to lay them to rest. She laughs, now, at the thought of Luke's aggrieved face at the burial of his saber here, and then feels bad.

The absence of suns turns the sky black more quickly than she'd known on Jakku, and she blinks at the sudden darkness around her. It feels, stupidly, as though her mood has brought it on. She shakes her head; determined to move past these indulgent thoughts. Gathers up her bowl and glass, and heads back indoors to wash up. 

It's then that she spots the distant shower of stars.

***

“Leia,” Luke says. They are much closer to Rey now, taking advantage of the absence of light. “Look up.”

Leia does, and begins to smile.

***

Boredom sets in quickly, and sitting up proves irresistible. He'd wanted to see if there were planets below, or whether he was simply floating above a vast sea of nothingness, never to be found. He hadn't sensed emptiness, but there's seeing, and there's feeling, and despite what Luke always taught him, he often found more value in the former than the latter.

He's glad of that, when he sees the large desert planet below. It isn't close enough to be identifiable, but it is large enough to suggest life, and therefore the hope of rescue. As he can only have the domed glass open for as long as he can hold his breath, he needs to take his fill of the sight. Pressing close to the edge of the casket dismantles more and more stars, which tumble out of sight below. He remembers being a kid, watching meteor showers skewer the night sky. Perhaps it's the same for the kids on the planet below. Perhaps they too are waking their parents, tugging them sleepily back into their rooms to see the show. 

He looks down, watches each spill of stars float sequentially downwards from the casket in which he lies. It continues to rotate, and he sees that the movement showers the stars down from all sides, until it's as though he's in a boat, riding a giant cosmic wave. Touching a hand to his head, he feels the stars tumbling down; dismantling the crown and puncturing the halo. These moments feel good. He is not afraid. 

One hand trembles on the glass dome, as he savours the breath.

***

“How-?” Luke says. His eyes vacillate wildly between the shower above and Leia's tearstained face. “How can that be-?”

“He believed that if he didn't go with me, it might be possible to come back,” she says. “He believed it so earnestly.”

“Are you saying it's the Force?” 

She doesn't need the Force to sense his scepticism, that's for sure.

“I don't know,” she says. “But I know it's him. Just as I knew there'd be a sign once the sun had set. Has Rey noticed?”

“She's looking,” Luke says. “She's not sure of it. She has a look on her face- it's...”

***

She tries to force back belief. This isn't like when she sensed Chewie. It hits her, hard, between the ribs. A knock that radiates darkness. Something not to be trusted. Something that Palpatine might have used against her. She didn't just feel Ben die; she watched his atoms disperse. She felt his entire being sift through her fingers, no more than dust. The spectrum of everything he was, everything he'd seen, everything he'd overcome – reduced to a breath, and breathed away. She no longer trusts a world in which such things are possible. She no longer trusts the Force. So, when it calls her, when it hints that just out of her sight was the person she most longed to see- she calls it a trick, and turns away. Chewing on her lip, drawing blood, she turns her back on the very stars.

***

“Rey!”

That, too, is a deceased voice; proof that she should never have come to this place. Places where memory live can't be trusted. 

“Rey.”

She opens her eyes, her vision blurred. Only the presence of the hazy light around Leia makes her stop, and listen. Of course. A Force ghost. And, perhaps that's why she'd sensed Ben. She'd sensed Ben in his mother.

“Leia,” she says. “General? General. Sorry. I'm a bit-”

“Leia is fine,” Leia says. She reaches out her hands, and cups Rey's cheeks. Wipes the tears away with her thumbs. “Look up. You know it, just as I know it.” 

Rey shakes her head, eyes squeezed closed.

“You know it,” Leia repeats softly.

“He's- Ben's- a ghost, too?”

“I don't know what Ben is. He wouldn't come with me. He wouldn't- he wanted to see you again. But you sense him, just as I do. You need to get to him.”

Rey stares wildly at her. “No. No, that can't- that can't be true. That...” she tails off, spotting another figure behind Leia.

“Luke?”

“You did good,” Luke says. “On Exogol. You did everything any Master could ever have asked for, and more.”

“And Ben-?”

“We both saw what we saw. That he's gone. But you feel something different, don't you?”

Rey closes her eyes, lifts her eyes upwards. The stars are falling slower now, as if tired out. But some still remain, concentrated in one place, a galactic signal that reflects in her eyes. And beyond that, she feels a bright light on the edge of her conscious thought. A warmth somewhere in the outer regions of her soul. A lostness, that could yet be found. She screws up her face; hating the trite and silly sound of the words in her head.

“I do,” she says. 

“Then I think you must go to it,” he says. 

She looks at Leia. “If it's not...”

“If he isn't there, then... I think you'll find something else, something that you're looking for.”

“I'm so sorry we never got to talk,” she says. “That I couldn't come back, before...”

“There is time,” Leia says. “At last, there is time. Go to him.”

For the first time since setting foot in Tattooine, Rey smiles.

***

She steadies herself, climbs into the battered old craft that brought her here.

“Before you go,” Luke says. “Did you tell that woman you were a Skywalker?”

Rey curses under her breath. “I- look. It felt right at the time. Does it bother you?”

“Not emotionally. But from a practical point of view, I died childless, so she's probably in the tavern right now, telling everyone that that war hero is a crazy lady.”

“Thank you, Luke,” Leia says, watching Rey shake her head, and start the craft. “That was very helpful.”

“Hey. At least I didn't say that she'd have a point.”

***

The air is growing thinner now, both inside and out. It's hard for him to tell how long he's been in here, but he's starting to feel uncomfortable. His legs are achy, and his lungs are having to work harder than they did before. He tells himself that it's because he's had the dome open too many times, but he can't resist the sight of life below. Such promise, so out of reach. A part of him wishes that he could just jump, but the last time he did that he broke several ribs. Lesson learned the hard way. Still, he forces himself to think of something else, when the temptation to sit up rears its head once more.

***

She's lost sight of the stars. They were down to the last remnants when she took off, and some of them had lingered in the sky for far longer than she'd expect ordinary meteors to do. Now, they're all gone, and she's struggling to see what created them in the first place. She tries to head straight, and not too quickly, in the hope that the shower will start up again and guide her home. She doesn't dare think about what she might find if she gets there.

***

He's struggling to breathe, now, so he closes his eyes, and forces each breath to be shallow. He slows his heart, the way he learned all those years ago in Luke's temple. He remains utterly still. It's a bit easier, now that he's not lying amongst quite so many stars. Things are more comfortable. There's less light, and he can believe that he is trying to fall asleep. He feels peaceful, despite his situation. Rescue is still possible. The stars outside are still falling to the planet below. If there's any chance, then he can't give up hope.

Darkness surrounds his casket.

Each breath feels divine. He imagines her, as she last was. Her face lighting up the darkness, her smile radiant. The feel of his name on her mouth. The sound of it, brought forward by her. As if naming him for the first time; and perhaps she had, because it was her that had led him to that place, so full of new purpose and hope. He hoped that she'd not sensed the death, like he had. He hadn't wanted to die. He remembered smiling at her, kissing her, feeling as though even death, but seconds away, was nothing in comparison. He remembered the sound she'd made as their lips touched, as though recognising that this moment had been written down millennia before, and finally come true. 

“You sound like an idiot,” he says. “A complete-”

He opens his eyes. The darkness pushes down on him. There is almost no light in the casket anymore, now that so few stars remained inside. The stars outside just aren't enough. And the air is thinner still. The air- he wonders whether the stars were providing it? And if so, he wonders what the logic is in using them to signal for help? None of it makes sense. Only instinct remains: open the dome. Looking around him, he sees nothing. He senses that there might only be one breath left. And yet, nonetheless, as if by compulsion, he pushes the dome open.

***

Light soars past her ship. She hovers in a waterfall of starlight, so penetrating that she momentarily lets go of the controls, extends her arms out, and lets it envelope her. She looks at her hands, and she can see every pore, every flaw, every nibbled cuticle. Then, looking up, she realises that the light is stars, and the stars are falling from somewhere, from something.

She slowly guides the craft higher, closing her eyes against the blinding illumination and letting her senses direct her. She goes higher and higher, until the burning red of the blood vessels in his eyelids quietens sufficiently so that she can open her eyes. 

A casket of some kind rotates in the light, and it has a domed roof. The domed roof is closed but for three fingers of a hand. She gasps. She steers the ship closer, hits auto-pilot. Without thought to airlessness, or to cold, she scrambles out into the darkness and reaches for the fingers.

***

He opens his eyes. Serenity of sleep ends in an instant, as _she_ is shaking him, kissing him, crying. He frowns. He can't understand her distress. He can only understand that it's her, and that it's kissing, and that all is therefore perfect. She urges him upwards, with difficulty, because he's warm, comfortable, _kissing_ , disinclined to move from the warmth of the blankets. But he trusts her, so together they make their way back onto her ship in woozy distress. She – rather crossly, which he finds irrational – tells him to sit down, an instruction which makes absolutely no sense, and which in any event proves moot, because he collapses onto the floor.

***

He's glad to be leaving Tattooine. His uncle never could think of anything good to say about it, and that's something that Ben now wholeheartedly relates to. They haven't decided, yet, where they're going. Only that Ben is now strong enough to go.

They make their way out on, through the sand clouds. She drives (he doesn't dare say otherwise); he navigates. When she's not on the controls, she reaches for his hand, almost for reassurance that he's still there. He puts his feet on the dashboard until she tackles him, until they nearly crash the ship into the sand dunes, not five minutes after take-off. And after a while, they settle into comfortable silence, as sand becomes space, and the worlds roll out their potential before them. 

He tries to find the casket with his eyes, as they fly further and further away, but it's gone. He can barely recall it in his mind, which is odd, because it was so clear when he was in it. All that remains of it is a tiny star-shard. Rey found it, when they landed, crushed almost to dust between his fingers. It glows where it sits, on a long strip of thin leather, over his heart. 

One day, he plans to get it set into a ring.


End file.
